Add File from Folder to existing Object

Question

Hi Community, 
 I have Files (outside of M-Files) in one Folder which should get continuously "imported" an attached/ updated to existing Objecttype-Datarecords (not Documents). 
 The Objecttype "Bills" retrieves its Data(records) from an external data source (SQL) and "can hold documents". 
 A pdf for example test123.pdf should get attached to the Object with Name or Title "test123". 
 How can I achieve this? Is there a way with M-Files Importer Tool? 
 Second thought: In VAF. Getting the File from folder and searching for the existing Object in VAF: ok so far. BUT how do I add the File to the Object? I could not find any documentation for this kind of uc. 
 Is this a reasonable way? 
 Thanks for your input and thoughts. 
 Best regards 
 Alex 
 Background: Why is "Bills" not a document-Class? In the first 1,5 years of production it was out of scope to get the actual pdfs to M-Files. It was only necessary to get the information about the pdf like Name / Date / Amount / Status etc from external System (SQL). Now the pdfs should be part of M-Files with the least amount of effort.

Joonas Linkola · Accepted Answer

I would consider storing the PDFs as documents and linking them to the corresponding Bill via a property on their metadata card (Choose from list 'Bills'). This would be the "M-Files way" to store them and enable you to use for instance M-Files Importer which doesn't support attaching files to non-document objects as far as I know. Users can access the document via the relationships of the Bill object (or vice versa).

Dino Grgic · Answer

Hi alex_michna , 
 consider trying our Extension Kit VAF application for your task. You could use the Data transfer module https://unitfly.com/customer-portal/data-transfer/ to configure your case. At the bottom of the page, you can find a case very similar to yours. 
 With mode AppendAndReplace (Appends all files to object, replacing any existing file on an object that has the same filename as any of the import files) you could import and link your files from a folder on the disk to the object in M-Files.

Add File from Folder to existing Object

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